


how to adequately employ language to ask ridiculous questions

by Nobodybitesherlip



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crying, FORESHADOWING the south downs, First Kiss, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Other, chickens mentioned, chickens pecking snakes so if that's not your thing well it's only mentioned once, creepy angel stuff, many eyes mentioned???????????, minor brooding and plenty of yearning, talk of crowley's past before he fell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 10:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19439137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nobodybitesherlip/pseuds/Nobodybitesherlip
Summary: "Long seconds ticked past in which Crowley hung his head and looked at the floor, and Aziraphale tried to recall how language worked and how to even hope to adequately employ it here."... He remembers, eventually. Aziraphale learns to ask questions and want answers now no one is keeping tabs anymore. And he really, can't help but wonder who Crowley used to be. Not that it matters. Not at all.





	1. Question

Who were you before the fall? 

He’d always professed not to remember. 

Yet, one time he said ‘you wouldn’t have known me anyway’ and Aziraphale had never forgotten that. 

When pressed, Crowley had pouted, and rambled on something along the lines of- heaven’s a big place you know, what are the chances. Hundreds, thousands of angels and whatnot celestials, chaos, creation was, all these things flying around and on such a short deadline. Then, he’d wandered off and made the pharaoh's favourite cat fall into a duck pond. (The cat was fine, by the way, he was mostly just trying to fuck with the ducks.) 

Aziraphale had left the topic alone for a few thousand years. 

He, Aziraphale, was aware that it shouldn't really matter. 

Especially after what they had been through; the genuine son of Satan turning out to be a perfectly pleasant boy with the right amount of reverence and riot in his perfectly average frame. Well. You could choose what you were now. And himself and Crowley (that still sent a little naughty shiver up his spine) well, they had chosen. They were just themselves. 

Not even between good and evil. Just… them. Good and Bad and Things that were Entirely Neither. Entirely neither like a cheddar cheese sandwich on pre sliced bread. (Although, maybe that lent a little more to bad). 

So, why did it matter who Crowley had been?

It had been Before. 

Still, as someone who had done his best not to know, not to think difficult questions, now everything he had sat on and ignored for several millennia was bubbling up to the top. 

Aziraphale, as a person, a being, needed nothing. 

But he'd had an awful track record from the start when it came to wanting things.

There was so much to want.

Like Crowley. Crowley had been like Knowing before the End of the World that Wasn't. He was some kind of serpentine metaphor for knowledge and sin of course, the apple, blah blah blah, thought Aziraphale, but no to know Crowley - to care and to feel and to Love Crowley - that had been forbidden even when Aziraphale had yearned.

He'd wanted since Paris, at least, and yearned since the Blitz when he couldn't ignore Crowley's goodness anymore. 

He had probably wanted Crowley well before he'd dare admit it to himself. 

Now. 

He could add knowing to wanting. He knew Crowley, surely. By now. But now it was allowed (or just not noticed) he just selfishly, stupidly, wanted EVERYTHING about him. And who he had been Before was really the only thing denied him. Aziraphale had always been greedy. It seemed it was just getting worse. 

He knew Crowley's favourite vintages of whiskey, wines, the various foods he could be enticed to eat. He knew his musical taste, his softspot for children, his distrust of ducks. What authors he hated, filmmakers he admired, brands of car, suit, glasses, favourite houseplants and what made him throw back his head and laugh that filthy laugh. 

That last one he'd worked hard to know. 

"Why Alpha Centuri? We'd loose these bodies for one, no atmosphere at all I believe, not that I've ever been there."

"I have it's nice! It's pretty. Lots of space."

"Space." 

"Oh you know what I mean, it's so bright and ridiculous and large space is. Like you." 

"Oh thank you."

"No, that was- anyway." Crowley turned away, but not before Aziraphale saw the edge of that blessedly fond smile. 

They'd known each other since time began. There were still centuries of details to catch up on, of course, but Before? Aziraphale had never seen him Before the world was created. Before Everything was split into Heaven and Hell and a group of distant dissenters were banished downwards and made their own upside-down Heaven against everything they had ever stood for. 

Angels from all ranks had fallen, although no one Aziraphale had known personally. He had always hung around with the type that didn't ask questions. Made everything much easier. 

He had been a cherubim* before he 'lost' the sword and was demoted to Principality. Turned out well enough in the end; he was left well enough alone. Aziraphale enjoyed his human form, the earthly pleasures. Four faces, endless eyes, so many wings too had never been this thing. God Herself had got the design down a little better by the time it had come to humans and so it only seemed proper they all adopt it too. He’d been a bit of a pioneer there. 

No one needed that many eyes and Aziraphale had never really missed them. 

What had Crowley been?


	2. Answers

Life resumed somewhat as it had. 

The bookshop, which had been burned but also not been burned, reopened. Occasionally. When the weather was bad. 

The books Adam had gifted were given their own memorial shelf tucked away in the back where Aziraphale wouldn't ruin his reputation as a discerning collector. You had to excuse the Anti-Christ a few things; he was only eleven. 

Crowley came and went, after they had dined at the Ritz, and then they had been for a rather charming picnic in the south downs which turned into an impromptu weekend away. Alfriston had some lovely fields just outside of it and a rather cute bookshop* with chickens out the back. Crowley hissed them into quite a flutter and told Aziraphale not to get ideas. Aziraphale had just smiled in a way he knew would make Crowley worry about chickens for the rest of the day and- did he really believe that chickens could peck snakes to death?! That seemed improbable. Just like dolphins being mammals.

“Tell me you’d look into those beady little eyes and trust that. Nu-uh. Unpleasant feathered lizard.”

Aziraphale decided to say nothing. 

They walked on the pebbly beaches of Brighton, too, and Crowley had a field day in a shop proclaiming to be Satanist in the lanes. He threatened Aziraphale with some truly awful pentagram sunglasses and they truced on NO pentagram sunglasses, and NO bookshop chickens. (Aziraphale won that one hands down as he had never thought chickens were a good idea beyond irritating Crowley. He had no way with animals. Or children, honestly.)

And then-

They were back. 

London seemed greyer, and smellier, and dingier than it had before. Aziraphale had loved the colours and characters of Soho, where an ageless ecentric could be politely accepted and a fantastic sushi place was just round the corner. Soho was London's Brighton, queer chaotic and fantastic, but somehow, back home, the ease with which he'd linked arms with Crowley to walk down Brighton pier had evaported with old habits and the careful non-contact that their old lives had prescribed. 

Some aspects were comfortable and familiar. 

Some were so restricting. 

Aziraphale just wanted to Know and that meant Change. The thought made him a little dizzy. Crowley was so fond, so familiar, a reliable and yet heady presence in his life that how would he even dare to change anything lest they lost what they had? 

Aziraphale had never slept much but if he had he would have been up at night. Freedom and free will was exhausting.   
...

Just like they used to, he and Crowley drank. 

They drank not to forget but to remember, these days, and that was nice.

This time they were at Crowley's. 

That was also nice. 

The flat was certainly too austere for Aziraphale's tastes, but he'd added a little light and then it was just fine indeed, because it was Crowley's, and the plants were rather luscious too if a little traumatised. A sofa had appeared eventually after Aziraphale insisted that having some sort of soft furnishing wasn't 'old fashioned' and that couldn't very well both sit on that gilt throne could they?!

Crowley had a raised an eyebrow so saliciously that Aziraphale hadn't been able to enter the study for weeks. 

Damn workplace training on Tempting. 

Now they lounged on a surprisingly comfy grey sofa. Crowley lounged, anyway. His feet were slung over one arm, and the top of his hair was just brushing Aziraphale's leg where he sat. Aziraphale had begun to want to put his hand into the mess of strands about four glasses ago and had been resolutely holding onto his glass instead. 

The demons eyes were closed, glasses off. (That was another reason Aziraphale liked being at Crowley's - the sunglasses vanished. Before now he'd only seen Crowley's eyes (since about 50AD) when he was very drunk, or at the end of the world.)

He'd once thought it was posturing. Then he had thought it was about hiding from humans, until he realised quite how powerful his demon was. Now, he thought he understood the glasses for what they really were; a shield from all the things he was supposed to be and do and want and what Crowley did best instead: care. 

"You stopped time for me," he murmured. 

Aziraphale tuned back into his body, sitting in Crowley’s flat and… oh dear. He'd just interupted himself- althought whatever he'd been rambling on about for the last however long he had no idea. He spared Crowley a fond glance, but caught himself. 

Crowley had stirred as Aziraphale paused. 

"Typhus, whaaa?" 

A long and lazy hand reached out to pat the coffee table for his glass of wine, which defied gravity quite remarkably as Crowley took a sip while still prostrate. Funnily enough, swallowing while flat on his back and half asleep didn't go as well and he spluttered a little and half sat up. "Bugger." He wiped a sleeve across his chin. 

"How many of those have you got do you think?" 

"Wha?"

"Have you ever tested it? Now there's no paperwork? You know with the wine and-"

Crowley twisted around to squint in confusion at his angel. 

Ah, thought Aziraphale. Yes, that was a little left field. 

"Miracles, how many can you do? Have you ever tested it? Like the wine just then. And, couldn't you have inverted gravity inside of you as well to make drinking easier?" 

"Innnh? Invert, um, what?" 

"Gravity, you know, change the gravitational pull down your gullet to make it easier to drink the wine. Why stop at the wine glass?" 

Crowley blinked, owlishly, as he only did when confused. He leant back a little. 

"I didn't think of it?" 

Aziraphale pressed on, caught with an idea, "But you could have? Correct?" 

"I, probably-" Crowley tucked his chin back and frowned some more, "Why, Angel?" 

"Could you… change gravity in the whole flat, even, or just the room?" 

"Eeehh, why would I want to?! That doesn't make anything … fun? That wouldn't achieve anything everything would just fall down. Including us." 

"I know, I know it's just a hypothetical my dear." 

Crowley stuck out his bottom lip. "You're being funny. You don't…" he paused and moved the word around on his tongue before committing to it, "hypothosise." 

Aziraphale wiggled a little more upright in his seat. "Well, maybe I'm turning over a new leaf." 

Crowley swung his legs back around and tilted away from Aziraphale to consider him with those burning yellow eyes, rather too appraisingly for this many drinks in. He propped himself up on the end of the sofa, chin in hand. "If you wanted to fall, angel, I know some people all you had to do was ask. Knew. Knew some people." He ruined the effect with a hiccup. "Aaahhh, it was funnier in m'head. You know, gravity n stuff." 

Aziraphale harrumphed, but only quietly. He let Crowley's joke die it's own death as Crowley noisily poured them both another glass, before asking:

"Before, what… were you?" 

"What?” Crowley shook his head, “Who was I? Me, why I knew people? Like… demons? I knew demons? It's been a week Angel don't tell me you've actually forgotten already." He took a gulp of wine.

Crowley's gaze had left Aziraphale and gone skittering across the table to look for something. Ah. Sunglasses. 

"You-" 

"Mmm why, why are you asking now?" Crowley was slurring just the littlest bit, but his gaze was clear and level as he returned it to Aziraphale. He had a hand out and slid his fingers together in the quiet facsimile of a click, and a pair of his Valentino's appeared hanging on the end of a finger, swaying in the lamp light. 

Oh that wouldn't do. 

Aziraphale held out a hand and leant towards Crowley, "May I?" 

Crowley blinked again, looked at the glasses, and back at Aziraphale who nodded. 

With narrowed eyes and a tilt of his head he proffered the glasses, arm outstretched. 

Aziraphale didn't touch Crowley's hand as he took the pair gently. They were heavier than they looked. The angel studied them for a second, turning them over in his hands, then with a caution it didn't really merit, perched them on his own nose. 

There was no sudden revelation, or smiting. The room was just a little darker. Then, he looked at Crowley. 

The demon looked disarmed. Having someone wear something of yours that is so you is weird, certainly. Aziraphale remembered Oscar Wilde putting on his bow tie and laughing, and Aziraphale had found the image so odd it had stuck in his mind all these years. That Mr. Wilde was shirtless at the time really hadn't helped. 

Crowley was looking between Aziraphale's eyes, now lenses. He seemed very snake as his own eyes flickered back and forth, and he eventually leant back into the sofa in an exaggerated mimicry of ease. 

"So, you were saying…?" 

"I know it doesn't matter, I have no right to know and you absolutely don't have to divulge if you would rather not, I just - wondered. Again. Who- what- you were before, well-" Aziraphale gestured awkwardly, wiggling his fingers and then pointing down. 

"I think we're past reinstatements now Aziraphale, but if you really need to know I'll tell you." 

"Oh, goodness, oh HELL no Crowley. Absolutely we are. I don't want that, I don't think I - no no. No." 

Crowley's eyes widened, and he went to adjust his glasses and prodded his nose instead. He turned the motion into rubbing between his eyebrows, the movement shielding his eyes a little bit from Aziraphale. He turned away. 

Aziraphale looked at him, his hunched shoulders taught through the soft cotton of his shirt, head down. Oh blast this new curiosity! If it didn't kill cats it would certainly do that to- well- whatever this was they had between them. And all for naught! It didn't matter a jot, he had No Right To Know and now he had just made his demon awkward. You never asked someone for an old name, a past life they'd left behind. Of course you didn't! What right did he have! 

He turned to Crowley in a fluster, just as Crowley slurred, low, quiet: "You never met me because I was a seraph. Ya know, burning halos and so many eyes. Way too many eyes that was, never saw the point." 

Aziraphale bit back his apology and froze in place. 

"Soooo many wings too, lots of holy fire back in those days before it went out of fashion. So much to do, like yelling nice things 'bout Her and making ssstarss n' planets n' stuff. But, Aziraphale, I honest to Satan don't remember my name. That was taken away. When I stopped singing Her praises and started asking questions." 

"...Oh." Aziraphale had long suspected Crowley had outranked him as a Principality, but maybe not quite like that. 

Long seconds ticked past in which Crowley hung his head and looked at the floor, and Aziraphale tried to recall how language worked and how to even hope to adequately employ it here. 

Eventually he cleared his throat and spoke.

"Thank you. I had no right to ask and I'm sorry I made you speak about something so clearly uncomfortable. Please forgive me Crowley. I got carried away." 

Crowley turned to Aziraphale then, and his eyes were glistening. His face was a mask of pain and memory, both sad and joyous and Aziraphale didn't have time to pull away as Crowley grabbed his hands. 

They were here, and then they weren't, and Aziraphale saw Crowley as he had been. 

Flaming hair. 

Ivory wings. 

Shimmering feathers inset with golden eyes like jewels. Long familiar hands grasped together in front of folded wings. And wings. And wings! The third pair bursting out of the room, shimmering with fire and sight and glory. On seraph Crowley's skin was a fine shimmer of golden snakeskin, and he was wreathed in flame and smoke and - sadness?

The vision unfolded the smallest pair of wings from in front of its beautiful face and Crowley's golden eyes stared back, utterly, unspeakably, miserable. 

Aziraphale blinked, and they were back.

He grasped the real Crowley's hands tighter. The eyes that met his were yellow and familiar and imploring. And so, so beautiful. 

"Oh Crowley-" 

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to show you as you'd be all angelically sad and then you'd look at me and go 'oh well that's a shame' now look at him, look at that eh? Not what he was, I wonder, I wonder- how that thing hung the starssss-" 

Crowley's voice broke. He tried to pull his hands away but Aziraphale held on for his life. 

"Crowley, I'm so happy for you. I- you're you. You're you!" 

"What?" Crowley gulped and swallowed a hissing sound, "what the ever loving hell?" 

"You're-" Aziraphale cast around and nothing seemed appropriate to use as a metaphor, "you're… like wine!"

"S,strong dark and goes to your head?" 

"No, yes- no- no-" 

"You're…" Aziraphale cast his gaze upwards, sighed, and promptly gave up on metaphors. 

"You're fantastic and I wouldn't have you any other way and I'm frankly glad I didn't know you then, we wouldn't have got on at all!" 

Crowley swayed a little.

"But I'm very, y'know-"

Aziraphale looked into Crowley's poor confused face and realised that he, Aziraphale was still wearing Crowley's blasted sunglasses. He miracled them away and met Crowley eye to eye.

Crowley sniffled, "Very- very fallen. Oh, Angel. You're crying. Not fair. I'm crying. Can't be both of us." 

"Sorry," sniffled Aziraphale, "I was just being curious and now I've made you horribly sad and we're still a little drunk and drunk and sad is truly awful and-" 

Crowley kissed him. 

...

There was no burning up.

No hellfire, no holy water.

Just a very human rather sniffly embrace of two very supernatural, very tipsy beings in a flat in London.

Crowley pulled back first, a blush joining the cacophony of emotions on his face. 

Aziraphale's eyes were wide, "Oh! Should I… say thank you?" 

"Bessst not." 

Crowley was watching Aziraphale intently, but his shoulders crept down just an inch as Aziraphale beamed, wide and angelic and glowing. Crowley let the smallest smile curl up. Maybe. A little. 

"I love you Crowley. As you are now." 

"Uuhhnnnyy." Crowley swallowed, "Uh- uhc- really?" 

"Rather a lot my dear, now I'm letting myself know it."

And Crowley. Crowley just threw himself into Aziraphale's shoulder, clutching him like a drowning man. 

"It was hard for me you know, I'd waited and waited and waited and I didn't want to I want to crush what you had left, even at the end- the very end- I kept thinking now you'll see, now you'll see, but you still believed they'd do the right thing and it would work out and I didn't wanna take that away," he wailed, clawing into Aziraphale's jacket. He was pretty sure Crowley's snake eyes couldn't cry real tears, but there was something damp going on. 

"I had it easier as I'd already lost my faith. Hell doesn't require faith, just service, it's kinda the opposite of faith ya know but turns out I wasnt the best at that either. I mean I was alright, I was good at lying and working round the problems but- I always thought you felt sorry for me and I didn't want that. And I didn't want you to fall. Okay? Know that too. Falling fucking SUCKS although I wouldn't go back, I didn't want that for you either-" 

"Shhhh. Shhhh my dear thing. It's alright." Aziraphale held Crowley firmly back, feeling his spine through the cloth, his shaking breath as he tried to calm and hot breath into Aziraphale's neck that tickled his hair. He rubbed a thumb under a jutting shoulder blade. "Crowley I was an utter tit, I'm so sorry. For asking about this. I don't care. I care about you now. About us now. I like you now so very, awfully much." 

"Nnn I mvvv huu." 

"Pardon?" 

Crowley moved his mouth off a damp patch in Aziraphale's shoulder where he'd buried his face, and his voice was low enough that had his head not been under Aziraphale's chin the angel might have missed it. "I love you." 

Aziraphale clutched Crowley tight. 

"Mmmfffffffnn." 

"Oh, sorry." 

"Can we pretend I totally tempted you into this and I'm not crying on your jacket right now, please." 

"Of course." 

"Thank you." 

"You won't think of me differently?" 

"I love you as you are now my darling, my dear, my nice and lovely demon." 

"Oy." It was soft, without feeling. 

Aziraphale just smiled, and wound a hand into Crowley's hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Alfriston bookshop - very real, nice. https://www.muchadobooks.com/

**Author's Note:**

> *A cherubim, that was, and not a cherub. Those silly things drawn like fat babies. Those were actually a Renaissance idea that Aziraphale found a little silly and rather charming.


End file.
